


things that aren't true

by piningly



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek, Dark, Derek Has Issues, F/M, First Time, Hurt Stiles, Hurt/Comfort, Jealous Derek, M/M, Oblivious Stiles, Pack Politics, Sad and Happy, Scott is a Bad Friend, Sheriff Stilinski Finds Out, Stiles-centric, Stilinski Family Feels, lying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 19:35:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3862171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piningly/pseuds/piningly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His hands are trembling. He hates himself. Hates the way he has to lie. Hates Scott, if only a little bit because he’s the only one that gets any good out of this and it seems like he’s gotten everything. It’s all so easy. Dad’s looking at him like he doesn’t know who he is — Stiles is looking at his fingernails like he doesn’t know what they are. What his hands have become - His vision gets a few black spots in it that only fizzle out with the way his father says, “I’m sorry,” because wait, what?</p>
<p>Sometimes his intellect is a curse because he can’t play dumb on this and say something like, “You forgot to record the last episode of Buffy?!” or “No sorry’s needed here! Scott bails on me all the time.” He can’t even pretend not to know what his Dad’s talking about. An empty alcohol bottle stares him in the face from a few centimeters left of the chest that doesn’t actually wear a badge anymore.</p>
<p>There’s nothing he can say.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry for whatever it is that makes you think you can’t trust me anymore.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	things that aren't true

**one**

It’s around 11pm when Stiles swings in the front door -which is relatively early, for him anyway - the fact that it’s an hour past his curfew doesn’t really register until he sees his Dad leaning against the kitchen counter and pointedly not looking his way. And Oh  _crap_. He was supposed to have the night shift today. He shouldn’t have even noticed. There should have been a distinctly dad-less space where his dad currently is.

Stiles readies the latest batch of lies at the back of his throat while he swings his backpack off, taking as much time as possible because hey, preparation when it comes to the fine art of lying is a must. Even if he’s never quite gotten around to making the words that come out anything other than garbled mush with a few ‘Scott’s house,’ or ‘Helping with homework’s thrown in for good measure. This is something he can do. It’s something he has to do, to protect the pack and save all their asses because god knows what his dad would do if he knew. Stiles doesn’t even want to think about it. 

He has to think about it.

As his bag hits the floor, clanking a little ominously because it was the full moon a couple of days ago and it’s not his fault that Scott can’t keep chains in his closet without his mom freaking out, Stiles makes his way across the hall to the kitchen, trying for an air of ‘Curfew? Me? I didn’t know,’ that probably looks 150% as fake as it is. The worn red of his hoodie does nothing to calm his nerves as he rubs it between his fingers and the silence - the  _silence_  that’s almost never a thing in the Stilinski house threatens to come up and swallow him hole. Not unlike the shark in Jaws but a hellovalot more scary because what is this, anymore?

The kitchen bench might as well be the table in one of their interrogation rooms and it suddenly hits Stiles that he’s the suspect. He swallows, fights off the taste of metal and forces a smile. It’s up to him to break the silence, as it was little more than 5 years ago.

“Hey, Dad of mine.”

Casual, and the stink of it makes him want to jump out of the room or run away from this until he doesn’t know which way’s forward or back anymore. Stiles talks -keeps talking because it seems that that’s all he knows how to do anymore.

“Now I know it looks like I’m an hour late home and that my attire’s kinda dirty, but that’s only because Scott had this assignment for chemistry and we needed to get samples from the woods and —you know how Scott is, I couldn’t let him go out into the woods alone because there are trees out there. Big scary trees which he’d probably try to climb and you know how that turned out last time he did it so I had to—-,”

The look on his Dad’s face cuts him off as surely as the words ‘Be quiet,’ would have. Stiles can only watch as a phone’s pushed before him, the words ‘Scott Home,’ scrolling across the screen. The time of call says 9:43.

Stiles can’t breathe for a second. He pushes out the last of his air with,

“I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I told you that Scott had to go home half way through and didn’t tell his mom about me because he was embarrassed?”

His hands are trembling. He hates himself. Hates the way he has to lie. Hates Scott, if only a little bit because he’s the only one that gets any good out of this and it seems like he’s gotten _everything_. It’s all so  _easy_. Dad’s looking at him like he doesn’t know who he is — Stiles is looking at his fingernails like he doesn’t know what they are. What his hands have become - His vision gets a few black spots in it that only fizzle out with the way his father says, “I’m sorry,” because wait, what?

Sometimes his intellect is a curse because he can’t play dumb on this and say something like, “You forgot to record the last episode of Buffy?!” or “No sorry’s needed here! Scott bails on me all the time.” He can’t even pretend not to know what his Dad’s talking about. An empty alcohol bottle stares him in the face from a few centimeters left of the chest that doesn’t actually wear a badge anymore.

There’s nothing he can say.

“I’m sorry for whatever it is that makes you think you can’t trust me anymore.”

 

* * *

 

It’s not until 10 minutes later, with his chest going in and out (so he must be breathing), that Stiles realizes he’s alone in the room.

 

* * *

 

**two**

 

Scott doesn’t know, because Scott never knows.

Stiles doesn’t try and change the way things are. It’s easier – like the way that he doesn’t ever get receipts at the grocery store because he knows that if he does, his dad will look at them and then he’ll know that, actually, they _do_ have ice cream and maybe a lot of chocolates hidden in various positions around the house – and although a game of hide and seek might be super awesome crazy fun when you’re 12, it’s not actually all that awesome when you’re heading into your 50s because you miss the whole counting part and you can’t make the things come out once you’ve gotten tired of looking for them. Not that, y’know, Stiles would know or anything except for the fact that he does because he’s the one who has to deal with the fact that his dad doesn’t like all of the things he can’t find, like he doesn’t like the fact that he can’t seem to remember where to start looking.

What haven’t they lost, really?

When Scott looks at him like he can see everything that’s going on inside of Stiles’ head – when he fades out with the trip of ‘Allison,’ rolling off his tongue or lets Isaac’s hands linger a little too long to be bro-like, Stiles has to remind himself that he’s not looking either. He’s _not looking_. He has to reach inside of himself and rip out whatever it is that’s telling his heart to beat the way it does and the sarcasm to race off of his tongue (do you think it’d look good with stripes?) because things are better in the way that they’re them, and the way that he hasn’t quite lost anything yet.

Allison and Isaac – the bottles in the dark and the Reece’s Pieces he keeps inside his pillow for those times when he can hear the empty clunk of a glass and the muffled click of a badge against solid wood – they’re things that remind him of what he’s still got. They’re things that remind him that people change.

They’re things. It’s easier. They don’t know.

**Author's Note:**

> hey hey! this has been playing on my mind for a while so i thought i'd finish it! this'll sit here until it's completed :). hit me up on t00gr00vy [tumblr] for faster updates!


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